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I posted about this over on Trek Movies I-X, but realized it's probably a topic of interest here and not all of you here may read that forum. Sorry for the double-post.

Anyway, in short, I discovered yesterday that those shuttles seen flying in and around Spacedock in Star Treks III and IV were actually designed to be tugs.

I learned this speaking to Bill George of ILM, who designed and built the thing for ST III. When I mentioned that I'd never seen much about this craft, he said, "It's a tug. That's the tractor beam emitter," and pointed to the array of quarter-circle ribs on the back of the ship above the nacelles. He went on to explain his idea that these ships would act as tugboats in spacedock, which is why you see them moving around the Enterprise...ready to guide her if necessary.

So, there ya go...right from the designer's mouth, a bit of trivia I suspect none of us knew.

You can see the tractor beam detail in the photo in row3, columns 2 and 3, and row 4, column 3 of this page.

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"There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.
—Will Rogers

Has anyone ever drawn any to-scale schematics or other technical literature of this craft?

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"The way that you wander is the way that you choose. / The day that you tarry is the day that you lose. / Sunshine or thunder, a man will always wonder / Where the fair wind blows ..."
-- Lyrics, Jeremiah Johnson's theme.

I "always" bought the idea of the little craft as a tractor-beam tug, because it seemed so ill suited for anything else. No access hatch for surface disembarking, for example. Little in the way of landing gear as well; the matte in ST4 shows the craft rather precariously perched for maintenance. And the little figurines in the cockpit wear spacesuit-like working gear...

We see no fewer than three of these working vehicles swarm around what is supposed to be a group of VIPs, delegates or other bigwigs, in a really cramped setting of clustered office-like buildings and tarmac marked with yellow lines for guiding vehicular movement. What is this place? The backlot of a shuttleport?

This is nice to know, but what we really need from Bill George is a lot more information about the Excelsior class. Is the 1,531-foot length final? What are the intended functions of various details on the model (to the extent they were nailed down)? How involved was Bill George with the bird of prey and what can he tell us about its final size and detailing?

I "always" bought the idea of the little craft as a tractor-beam tug, because it seemed so ill suited for anything else. No access hatch for surface disembarking, for example. Little in the way of landing gear as well; the matte in ST4 shows the craft rather precariously perched for maintenance. And the little figurines in the cockpit wear spacesuit-like working gear...

We see no fewer than three of these working vehicles swarm around what is supposed to be a group of VIPs, delegates or other bigwigs, in a really cramped setting of clustered office-like buildings and tarmac marked with yellow lines for guiding vehicular movement. What is this place? The backlot of a shuttleport?

Timo Saloniemi

Perhaps this is "edge" of the spaceport facility. If the camera did a 180 turn you'd probably see the landing field itself, perhaps. These are the admin and maintenance buildings for the shuttle port. Boeing field in Seattle is kind of like this. Admin and hangar facilities run right up tp the tarmac at the field. IMO. YMMV.

I looked up the Jackhill version of the tug and while it's correctly identified as a tug, the features aren't correctly identified. It calls what Bill George identified as the tractor beam emitter as a radiator, and the engines are labeled as tractor beam emitters. I'll try to get photos next time I see Bill.

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"There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.
—Will Rogers